Progress Continues for Tactical Vehicle

[unhappycamper]

Progress Continues for Tactical Vehicle
November 27, 2009
American Forces Press Service|by Donna Miles

A program to develop a new family of light tactical vehicles for Army, Marine Corps and special operations forces is moving ahead at full steam, almost halfway through its technology development phase.

The joint light tactical vehicle is an Army, Marine Corps and U.S. Special Operations Command program to replace the Humvee with a family of higher-performing, more survivable vehicles able to carry greater payloads, said Kevin Fahey, Army program executive officer for combat support and combat service support during a recent interview.

The goal, he explained, is to fill a critical capabilities gap while developing a family of vehicles capable of performing multiple missions and sharing common components.

The Army, lead agent for the program, announced just over a year ago that it had awarded three contracts valued at about $166 million for the program's 27-month technology development phase. The three contractors are BAE Systems Land and Armaments, Ground Systems Division; General Tactical Vehicles, a joint venture between General Dynamics Land Systems and AM Genera; and Lockheed Martin Systems Integration.

During this phase, each of the three competing contractors is developing prototype vehicles in three different payloads configured for specific operational missions, Fahey said.


REst of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/army-news/progress-continues-for-tactical-vehicle.html?col=1186032369115



unhappycamper comment: Meet the JLTV:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Light_Tactical_Vehicle

Joint Light Tactical Vehicle
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The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is a U.S. Army, USSOCOM, and U.S. Marine Corps program to replace the current HMMWV<1> with a family of more survivable vehicles and greater payload. In particular, the HMMWV was not designed to be an armored combat and scout vehicle but has been employed as one, whereas the JLTV will be designed from the ground up for this role.

The JLTV program is related to, but not the same as, the Future Tactical Truck System (FTTS) program. Lessons learned from the FTTS have been fed into the JLTV requirements. The future family of vehicles will comprise five armored versions, ranging from infantry combat vehicles, command vehicles, reconnaissance vehicles, and armored utility vehicles.

There will probably also be an armored personnel carrier and a number of other non-armored versions for other purposes such as ambulances, utility vehicles and general purpose mobility. Such a design could also be used in place of an armored personnel carrier or unarmored trucks. However, the JLTV program could be outpaced by the rapid development of light weight MRAPs.<2>

History
The following companies and partnerships bid for the JLTV contract:

Boeing, Textron and Millenworks<3><4>
General Dynamics and AM General (as 'General Tactical Vehicles')<5>
Force Protection Inc and DRS Technologies<6><7> (officially rejected on August 14, 2008).<8>
BAE Systems and Navistar<9>
Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh Truck and Plasan<9><10>
Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems Mobility & Protection Systems, Alcoa Defense and JWF Industries.<11><12>
Blackwater and Raytheon<13>

On 29 October 2008 the Pentagon narrowed the field of vendors to the Lockheed Martin, General Tactical Vehicles and BAE Systems/Navistar teams to compete for the final version and contract for the JLTV. Each team received contracts worth between $35.9 million and $45 million to begin the second phase of the program, which could ultimately be worth $20 billion or more.<14> The contracts were put on hold following protests by the losing teams, Northrop Grumman-Oshkosh and Textron-Boeing-SAIC. On 17 February 2009, the Government Accounting Office denied the protests.<15>

Australia signed an agreement in February 2009 to fund nine of the first 30 JLTV prototypes.<16> India has become interested in the program in 2009.<17>